


This Is When

by QuantumFizzx



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Frankenstein Allusions, Mild Smut, Steve x Peggy mentioned, Who among us is so bold?, because it just kinda fit, because who wouldn't be tempted to go all-in to impress Steve Rogers?, poor decisions, reader makes poor choices, starts several weeks before Endgame so there are character death mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuantumFizzx/pseuds/QuantumFizzx
Summary: Reader has liked Steve from afar and, when an opportunity finally arrives, her efforts to be what she thinks he wants have consequences





	This Is When

The bad guy isn’t always so easy to spot. A villain, the very last person you expect.

Steve stands, looming larger than life over the disused conference table. Five years of recently unearthed dust still visible on the far corners. Brittle paper rustles as he unfurls an antique, camel-colored map, apparently routing modern comparatives. It’s just him, a screen, and some papers. Despite that, the room feels full, fit to burst. You opt to leave before it does. Turn tail, spin on the ball of your foot, and leave him undisturbed.

“Nope,” you say, pursing your lips and shaking your head as you return to where Nat sits, legs up and feet crossed on her table across the compound.

“No?” She says, surprised and speaking a little slowly around a mouthful of peanut butter. “He won’t do it?”

Your face scrunches up; eyes close not wanting to see her reaction. “No, uh...nope. I sorta couldn’t ask him to.” It sounds more like a question. One eye peeks open while the rest of your face probably looks like you’ve sucked down a crate of lemons.

She plops her half sandwich down dramatically, makes a show of brushing crumbs. “You know,” she begins, eyes twinkling, “I once watched him microwave a can of tomato soup. In the can.”

“I fail to see how that’s relevant here.” It was probably right after he first came to this century, too, you think defensively on his behalf.

“I’m just surprised you’re intimidated.”

You scoff. “I am allowed to be intimidated. For crying out loud Nat, he punches aliens.”

“I punch aliens.” Her eyebrows lift in challenge, enjoying this too much.

How long has it been? Years since you met him once in passing. Never any real interaction. He may not even recall your name. Sporadic appearances in heavily-crowded rooms, and no mutual dealings before...well, before half of everything went to Hell.

Not much opportunity now, he lives off-site, always gone leading therapy groups and the occasional mission. Still, every time the past few years you’ve heard Nat mention he’s come around the all-but-deserted HQ, butterflies.

Lost in thought for a moment longer than innocent, you spot Nat smirk knowingly.

This is when you decide shit needs to change. Steve Rogers needs to notice you.

“Fine!” You head back out, arms waving near your head in mock surrender.

Striding up behind him in the conference room, you clear the nerves from your throat and, from the subtle flex near his shoulder blades, it’s clear he knows you’re there - that someone is there - but he’s unfazed. He certainly doesn’t notice you. Being unnoticed by Steve Rogers is a skill you’ve unwittingly, unwillingly mastered.

In fairness, he notices you as much as he would most everyone else that’s left. No one’s exactly sneaking up on history’s greatest soldier.

You suspect it’s more of an instant evaluation and subsequent, triaged dismissal: Nondescript person. Location appropriate attire. Behavior within expected parameters. Sufficient security clearance relative to location. Threat level low.

Surely, you’re no threat at all, to him. To yourself...jury’s out.

“Captain Rogers?” You step across the table from him.

He looks up, briefly. Enough to be courteous but remains focused on his project. “How can I help you?”

Suddenly, your lips dry despite the strawberry Chapstick they’re always coated in. “Nat wants me to find out if you’ve made a decision about helping escort the groups next week?”

He leans slightly and braces both arms on the table. Not looking up, he sighs out, “I want to help, but trotting out Captain America doesn’t seem like the way to do it.”

Without thinking, you say, “Hadn’t really been looking for a super soldier to take a bus load of orphans to the museum. Just Steve Rogers: Certified Driver’s License holder.”

A ghost of a smile. He looks up. “Fair enough. Count me in.”

As you leave, practically bouncing from this positive first real interaction, you call over your shoulder, “Though, after you’ve tried to wrangle 150 kids for lunch, that superhero bit might not seem like such a bad idea.”

You hear a faint laugh as you exit.

“You know,” Nat says, right after you tell her Steve’s decision, “I used to suggest dates to him all the time.” She looks wistfully out the window, to a past more than a world away. “He never bit. Maybe that was for the best back then. I was just throwing out names. Trying to get him out.” She says that, but takes a beat. She knows, we both do, that’s not quite it. Not to get him out. It was really trying to help him fit in. “But, yeah, never seemed interested. Made me promise to stop. Stop suggesting. Stop having women bring him coffee, bump into him in the elevator, what have you. So, I promised.” You watch her twist the plastic bag around a loaf of bread and shove it to the back of the counter. “Now, I’m not so sure.”

You look over to the doorway that leads back toward the conference room he’s probably still in. “That seems like a good thing. Probably making him uncomfortable for the sake of a few dates.”

“True. They were good people, not good matches.” She shrugs, a small hitch - one that you only recognize from logging hundreds of hours around her - shows she’s only feigning casual. Quite suddenly, you understand this is a dead-serious talk. “I never regretted making him that promise until you came along.”

You swear you hear an actual record scratch.

“Wh-? What on earth would make you say that?” You look down at your faded t-shirt and - oh, you hadn’t noticed - threadbare yoga pants. Your standards have devolved into If It’s Clean, It Gets Worn. You know your hair’s in disarray, face bare. Not exactly Steve’s button downs and starched jeans.

 

“C’mon, your ability to adapt? That might be an actual superpower. You both operate on the same compass. Don’t know how to stop putting others first. No compromise. When I saw your letter to Secretary Ross bullet-pointing everything wrong with his stupidass Survivor Mandates? An admin who commits career suicide by telling off the Secretary of State?” Nat shakes her head. “That’s right up there with airport rumbles and jumping outta planes without a chute.”

You really don’t know what to say to that.

Of course, you’d fantasized something happening between you and Steve. Look at him.

Plus, he’s a good guy. THE Good Guy. The Embodiment of morals and decency.

Your room currently has several drained Jameson bottles, at least three weeks’ worth of dirty laundry, a fist-sized hole in the wall from when you received your first reply from Ross, and simply scorchingly filthy porn on an incognito tab. (As a precaution, you’d searched a few vanilla sites too, hoping if anyone ever went snooping through your browser history, they’d be satisfied with that and not dig deeper to find the banned-in-several-states stuff.)

You were more likely to listen to Steve Miller or, heck, even Roger Miller, than Glenn Miller.

You’re convinced you’d turn him off in a heartbeat. Based on what you know of him anyway. A lot can be discerned reading about his life and choices. He is just so closed off - red, white, and blue brick walls. So much in the past.

None of that matters though. It doesn’t matter if you never actually get his attention in the first place.

Looking past Nat at your reflection in the window, you have to wonder how you’d keep it if you ever got it.

Honestly, maybe you shouldn’t even try. Life is barely hanging on. People are either so broken they don’t function or so good at compartmentalization that they don’t move on and just keep trying to resuscitate it, to maintain it.

“How’s your housing proposal coming along?” Nat breaks you out of your thoughts. “Is it too much? You’re already doing that food program revamp plus the international incident monitoring.”

“Nah, I got it.” You have to. You want to. Anything you can do that allows Nat time to track down her best friend and maybe, just maybe, someone will find a way to bring everyone else back, too.

The skeleton crew that remained at Avengers HQ after Wakanda, after Thanos, had drifted away within weeks. All with broken families and lives that needed stitched up, pressing wounds that demanded them more. All but you and Nat. Nat had no one and you had no one worth going to. You’d been just another worker bee before, trying to make things right, doing the best you could for the best people so they could actually accomplish things.

Life is full, brimming with grey mourning and chalky despair, and you really don’t need a distraction. Even if it’s as amazing as Steve Rogers.

You almost convince yourself that’s true.

**

The outing goes smoothly. All kids accounted for and - it shouldn’t be the highlight, but it is - Steve has spoken with you most of the day. Usually about the kids and their needs. Interspersed, he asks where you’re from. Who you lost. Where you were when it happened. All the sorts of things everyone has learned to ask so they don’t trigger a breakdown.

“Who did you lose, Steve?” It’s common knowledge, but you ask anyway.

He seems surprised to hear the words. Waits a beat before answering. “This time it wasn’t everyone.”

Near the end of the day, outside the giftshop, you spot him deep in conversation with a rather pretty guide. She scoots a little closer every few moments and he allows it. Her hair is brown, soft waves pulled back in a barrette. Dark red lips. Neatly tucked uniform, pencil skirt.

Huh. Okay. He is very much in the past. Even further than the rest of us.

This is when the idea hits. It’s all at once, a lightning strike forcing it to life.

On the way home, you stop by a drug store and make a solitary purchase: semi-matte, red velvet lipstick.

**

You’re determined to focus on work and not go chasing after him or concoct schemes to run into him. You’re not some errant child running after him like he’s a clanging ice cream truck. You are a mature person with goals and obligations and willpower and if you’ve recently developed a raging interest in the 1940’s, well, that’s pure coincidence.

You are not going to seek him out.

You cave two days later.

Container of freshly baked (by someone, not you) cookies in one hand, you find yourself waiting for a break in a VA meeting he leads. A curious smile pulls at the corner of his mouth when he spies you leaning against the doorframe.

“Well, let’s take a break. Back in five?” He jogs up to you, eyeing the cookies. “What’s this?”

“Oh,” you say, holding them up as if you’d forgotten they were there, “These old things?” While you speak, you notice his gaze go to your dark lips. His brow furrows slightly, then back to your eyes. “I just thought maybe your group would like treats?” Suddenly, you feel silly. As if you’ve mistaken combat veterans for kindergarteners in need of snack time. “Do you serve refreshments?”

 

His rare smile is blinding. “We do now.” Grabbing the cookies, with one last glance that doesn't quite reach up to your eyes, he returns to the group.

As you turn to leave, he calls after you, “Wait, let me introduce you. Please, stay. We’re almost done anyway.”

You position yourself at what you hope appears to be a respectful distance for the remainder of the meeting.

He’s very good, you realize. Gets everyone to open up, encourages them to share and then to move on. Somehow managing to come across as opening up, but never revealing more about himself than any history book contains.

After, he thanks you again.

“It was nothing really. Happy to do it.”

“You baked and came all the way down here with cookies for people you’ve never met?” That isn’t accurate, but you don’t correct him. “I wouldn’t call that ‘nothing.’” He rubs the back of his neck. “So...I should probably see you home safely.”

Trying to seem not-ridiculously overjoyed, you shrug. “I made it here on my own. I can probably make it back.”

“You stay at HQ, right?”

“Sure do.”

“You don’t, uh, have anyone—anywhere, some place in the city?”

No, you don’t. You shoot your shot. “That’s a story. Wanna hear it over coffee?”

He tilts his head. “Yeah, I could do that.”

Until 2:00 a.m., over cold coffee, you end up talking about pretty much everything except any real details about yourselves.

After you slide out of the booth to leave, he appears deep in thought, runs a finger over the lipstick smudge on your cup.

 

**

 

Three days after shared coffee, and roughly eight hours of big band and WW2 research, you paint your lips and slide on a skirt for the first time in years.

Steve is due at HQ today and, though you don’t know his mission, you are going to find a reason to be in his vicinity.

“Hey, lady,” Nat whistles, “are you trying to seduce your way past Ross’s assistant? Because that skirt might do the trick.”

You run your hands over invisible wrinkles, “Something like that.” You hope Steve makes an appearance soon, because you’ve been so preoccupied that going there had slipped your mind.

“It wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain ca-”

“Shh!” You cut her off as Steve enters. He nods to you. Your cheeks warm as his eyes follow down your skirt.

“Wheels up in 10, Natasha.”

“Think we’ll be back before dinner?” Nat teases.

He gives a withering look. “Maybe dinner next Thursday.”

Now or never. “I was going to make chicken fricassee soon. I could, maybe, do it when you both get back?”

Nat looks at you as if you sprouted two heads. “Uh, sure? Not gonna turn down a home cooked meal.”

Steve follows her lead. “Not sure Romanoff has ever completed a mission report without Chinese take-out, but we can give it a go.”

Nat elbows him and exits, still looking at you through narrowed eyes.

Figuring out how to cook in a few days shouldn't be that hard.

**

It was that hard.

You end up baking a ham instead. The air swirls in brown sugar and cinnamon. Nat, winking, invents a reason to leave immediately with her apple crisp.

Steve watches the common area door shut behind her. “You know, for a spy, she isn’t very subtle.”

“True.” You shrug, busying yourself putting leftover ham slices on rye bread that you’ll insist he take home later. “But maybe there’s no place in this world for subtlety anymore.”

He looks at you, the lipstick you’d touched up earlier, your hair pulled back. Nods softly.

“Steve, would you like to go on a date with me?”

This time he nods a little harder. “Yes. Yes, I would.”

 

**

 

Steve’s schedule is only open on the many days you give dance lessons at the orphanages. After some shuffling, you get them postponed.

It takes a few tries, but you start to get the hang of this new look.

Little things at first. Subtle. Small. Glossy clear lips exchanged for matte red. A knee-length dress here and there. Belts to accentuate your waist.

You try doing your hair differently. It seems somehow too much. Too obvious. Too...her. You know about her, everyone does. You know who she is. It’s a present, tangible thing, his love for that remarkable woman. And she was remarkable, utterly deserving of Steve, if any woman is. Or, was. They’re far beyond star crossed lovers, displaced by glacial ice and merciless march of time.

But you’re right here and, determined.

You can hear the echoes of your grandmother and countless wise women, “Don’t change yourself for any man.”

Oh, but Gram, Steve Rogers isn’t just any man.

At your third dinner, a band plays standards. Several couples get up to dance. You drop hints like rainfall.

“Sorry, I...I don’t dance.” He shifts in his seat uncomfortably.

“Oh. Oh, that’s okay. I don’t really either.”

**

His place is spartan. Walls dull grey, painted in longing. A few framed sketches. Stunning, beautiful. He says nothing when he notices you linger on the one of her the longest. It’s gone, tucked away somewhere, the next time you come over to cook dinner.

A few weeks in, over potato soup that turned out pretty good even if you were craving sushi instead, you begin to wonder if you’ve miscalculated this whole thing. You’ve held hands out walking. Hugs linger a little longer. Nothing more. Stagnant.

Maybe he just...can’t. Move on. Move on. Move on. Decade-long mission. Try to move on. Make the best of it. Going through the motions, a caricature of himself, of who he’s supposed to be.

Maybe that’s what you admire the most about him. He just keeps getting back up. It’s not that he won’t break - he seems so very, very impossibly unbroken. Too stubborn from a lifetime of fighting that he won’t surrender tethers to his past.

Whatever it is, or isn’t, you can’t stay away.

Sometimes, he eyes you skeptically. When you’ve done perhaps too much, channeled a smidge more housewife than prudent (and you do question why you’ve taken this tact but he keeps seeing you so you barrel ahead) when you’ve silently, voluntarily rearranged and back-burnered your own work and interests.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but you really don’t have to go to all this trouble,” he says one evening, setting the table.

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” _It is._ “I enjoy doing this for you.” _I enjoy doing things for you, but not so much this._ “Besides, what else would I be doing?” _Cleaning my apartment that I never let you see for many reasons. Actually completing projects. Wearing stretch pants. Work._

He sets a plate down. “What would you like to be doing?” It’s an innocent enough question, asked innocently enough. It’s only you that makes it feel more like _I find it hard to believe you want to be doing this._

This is when you realize you’ve convinced yourself these changes are improvements.

Surely, he - who stands eye-to-eye with gods and monsters, who observes the world from a vantage point that quite literally no one else has - wouldn’t be interested in your mundane, day-to-day work. Not the minutiae of clerical work, grant proposals. Wouldn’t endure your ironic love for hair bands that is pretty light on the irony or backtrack on that whole no-dancing rule.

He’d definitely be leaving a Steve-shaped exit hole in the wall sprinting in the opposite direction of the porn you haven’t peeked at in weeks.

You venture another look. His face is earnest. You recall something you’d always meant to do.

“Well, I think shelters want people to come pet the cats.” _Oh, god. What if he hates cats?_ “Dogs, er, dogs and cats. Animals.” Smooth.

He smiles, a little wider than you could’ve anticipated, and resumes placing silverware.

“If you’re free Saturday, let’s go.”

The questions start again during dinner. Having things done _for_ him, his disquiet is palpable, like his skin itches and stretches over knitting wounds. Forgotten scars busted open.

“You do realize it was never like that for me, right?” He says. “There wasn’t pot roast on the table and a newspaper waiting for me. I grew up in the Depression. It was a mug of hot water instead of tea and getting sent to bed so early we didn’t notice we’d missed dinner.”

You had realized that. You hadn’t realized he knew you were catering specifically to him.

“This is how my grandparents raised me. I miss that sense of home, that sense of...comfort?” You fiddle with a spoon, your reflection elongated, distorted along its curve. “Steve, just because you didn’t get it, doesn’t make it right.”

His head draws back, taking you in. An unreadable look in his eye.

“I know you didn’t get what you deserved,” you chew the words, “back then. I just want to help you get it now.” Fidgeting, words feeling too...accurate. “Or, the closest thing to what you...we deserve.”

His hand covers yours, wraps fingers together, entwines. Gives you a tailored version of his VA coaching. Tells you that the world is what we make it. That it can be good and right. That he knows you’re holding back, holding something back, but admits he is, too, that he isn’t sure he knows how not to anymore. “Please,” he starts, squeezes your hand gently, “what aren’t you telling me?”

Slipping your hand out from under his, missing the warmth immediately, you start without thinking. “You’re here and I’m here and making the best of it. Have you felt…” you stop for a moment, realizing something you hadn’t let yourself think before, “...have you even felt real in years?”

The back of his chair squeaks as he leans back against it. Concedes. “Not very often.”

“I’m tired of it, weary of just getting by. Aren’t you, Steve? What are our lives for, if not for something better than just seeing if we can make it to another sunset?”

This is when you think it’s all gone to Hell. Maybe you’ve overstepped.

Wordlessly, never taking his eyes off you, he folds his napkin, pushes his chair back, stands up and comes directly over to where you sit. Bending his knees until he’s at eye level, he runs his hand along the side of your face, thumb tracing your skin, and slowly, slowly places his lips on yours.

You can’t help the smile that overtakes you mid-kiss. He pulls back and smiles, too, color in his cheeks.

It’s all very sweet and proper. Nice.

Then you notice the slightly darker tint to his eyes and you, for lack of a better word, lose it.

“C’mere.” You grab his collar and crash your lips to his. His eyes fly open and you almost laugh but you use this element of surprise to propel yourself out of your chair and twist until he’s flat and you’re straddling his chest.

Hovering an inch above his pleasantly, openly shocked face, you breathe out, “Wanna start living in the moment, Mr. Rogers?”

He does. Three times, all the most polite missionary orgasms in history. No complaints. You do a No-Shame-At-All-Walk back to HQ the next day.

**

It’s gradual, but somewhere along the line, he starts talking to you. Really talking. About his mom. Drawing. Losing Bucky again. And again. The Strike Team’s betrayal - his team for over a year - acute and somehow still raw.

Days become mutual, together. Not alone. The kind of unalone so stark and bright, like daybreak rain, that it highlights how alone you’ve both been. Like you’d hoisted the cellar door and crawled out of its dank depths.

One night, a man from his groups doesn’t make it. Car wreck.

“Go, Steve. It’s okay. They need you.”

“It’s strange now,” he sighs. “To have death come suddenly, in such a… normal way.”

“Us normal folk don’t often get epic send-offs,” you joke, lamely. Apologize with your eyes. His brow tightens like he didn’t really want to contemplate that.

“The group wants to grab a few drinks,” he says. You know he means you’d be bored, since this version of you doesn’t drink. “I don’t know how long...” His voice is the slightest tinge hopeful.

“Just go,” you say softly.

You wait at his place. Answer overdue emails, start to catch up. Feel more like yourself.

Sometime after midnight, you fall asleep on top of his bedspread.

Later, he slips in, curls up around you. Tucks you below his chin. He smells of soap and something distinctly Steve. You stir and turn to him, palm flat on his chest, press a soft kiss above his heart.

“You stayed.” He kisses your fingers.

“Of course,” you say, sleep-slurred.

Before sunrise, he buries himself inside you, tilts your hips, angles in. It’s slow sweat and sweet, limbs tangled and swallowed breaths. Holds your face, hands woven in your hair as he rocks in you. Never says a thing, his tongue curls into your mouth, pushes your secrets back in.

And you fall a little further each passing night. It feels foreign, but warm. Like remembering something you never really knew.

What should be joy is horror. You’ve never been more scared. Even when you’d watched everyone on your bus disintegrate, driver’s hand gone to soot.

Late one weeknight, you burn the ever-loving shit out of your hand on the stove. A string of creative curse combinations leaves your mouth for a full forty-five seconds. It’s all very incongruous with the frilly apron and (useless) oven mitts.

He looks gloriously scandalized before laughing until his eyes water.

He takes you bent over the island and it is anything but polite. Positively revels in you. Reveals spots you didn’t know you had. You scream his name.

Ragged breaths behind your ear. “You’re so close...I want it.” His words push you over, as you clench he loses rhythm, follows.

Panting, pressed against cool granite, confessions carved into stone, you hear yourself whisper how much you love him.

He has propriety enough to act like he didn’t hear you.

**

This is when it gets awkward. Two steps forward, three miles back.

You barely speak the next day. And the next. Then, it’s the most days without seeing one another since this whole mess started.

On day four, you slide out of your sweats and into a dress, paint on your face, and go lean on his apartment door to wait for him.

Being alone with one’s thoughts is never a great exercise, but certainly not for someone who has been play-acting for a few months. Mentally, you scroll through all the deadlines you’ve missed.

Nat’s voicemail replays in your head. “Hey, I know you might think this isn’t my business, but you’re my business and those kids are my business and, frankly, Steve is my business. You’ve lost perspective and, again, frankly, I didn’t think you’d be like this with him. Please call me. Or, come to work. Both. Both would be good.”

You look up at the ceiling and breathe out. An unblinked tear escapes.

You miss Steve approaching. “Hey, are you o-” he starts, then chews his lip for a moment. “We need to talk.”

“I’m not so sure we do.” You stare blankly at the walk ahead. “I think I’m just gonna go.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s what you want that’s at issue here.” Another traitorous tear slides down your face. “I know I’m not genuinely what you want.”

“Damn it,” he huffs, mostly to himself. “Just come inside. We shouldn't do this in the hallway.”

You move off the door and he goes in, pulling you in at first, then looks to where he holds you and drops your arm as if burnt.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t really have anything to be sorry for Steve, except maybe avoiding me for a few days.”

He runs his hands over his face. “I just don’t think I can be what you need. I thought I could, but I just don’t think I’m...capable of that anymore.”

“Capable of what?” You know. But you need to hear him say it, to rip it off like a bandage left too long, gauzy fibers soaked, enmeshed with tissue. If you finally hear it, then you can...you don’t know.

“Oh, shit, this sounds so bad. I want to. I want to love you. There are moments when I think I could, that it could happen, but it just...doesn’t.”

This is when you break.

No rebuttal comes. Your mind sparks but fades. You can’t help but try to hang on, dig in, your fingers clawing at the dirt.

“It’s okay, Steve. I didn’t mean t-”

“It is definitely not okay! None of this is okay. I don’t want to hurt you or waste your time.” He shakes his head. “I can’t ask you to compromise like that.”

“The whole damned world now is nothing but compromise and it sure as Hell didn’t ask.”

“We’re better than that,” he says, frowning. “We deserve real.”

“Are ‘we’ better than that? You...you are. Me? I don’t know.” You try to laugh but it just chokes off. “The planet used to be stuffed with twice as many people and most of us - I sure as Hell was, weren’t you? - were very much alone.”

He sighs. Brushes a tear from under your eye. “Part of me...part of me is always going to be someplace else.”

This isn’t news. You blow out air slowly. “How I feel isn’t going to change whether you feel the same or not. I don’t want you to send me away because you think you know better.” You aren’t crying anymore. You’re mad. “I want to be with you, regardless.” A blind rage, mostly at yourself. Probably all at yourself. “It’s my choice and I damned well think you’re worth it.”

His face is genuinely stunned.

**

You both really do try. Make the best of it.

Things change though.

Resigned that, whatever he feels, it’s not love. It’s affection adjacent. If a thin line exists between love and hate, then it’s a thick metal girder between love and like.

You double down. Desperate, every word rehearsed, every aspect honed to perfection. _Let me have these pieces of you in exchange for pieces of me._

In the throes, one night, you hear him stop himself from saying it. He doesn’t mean to, you know it. He can’t help himself any more than you can. It’d be fighting oceans and tides and lightless moons.

On your knees, in stockings and red-lipped, before him. “Peg-...Pe-...Please...don’t stop.” The pain squeezes your heart, musculature seeping between its dead, cold digits. You swallow it down along with him.

On top of you, wrapped up around you, his hoarse puffs beside your ear. They all sound like the beginning of her name.

They all are.

You could pretend it’s your name, a name for what you’ve become. Placeholder. Placebo. But even that’s not accurate. You’re pure medicine scorching through his veins. You’re this century’s super serum, burning up under the hot lights and sterile space a Stark made for him. You’re on fire, searing away trying to be what you think he needs - but, he didn’t need anything to be good, never did - all the while, over the chaos, Peggy shouts to stop.

You signed on for this.

Because you faked it so well, you’d fooled yourself.

Messy. Misaligned. Reckless love.

You take to crying in the shower. Searching every piece of you, you don’t know what more you can change or give or swap out like spare parts, to finally, finally, be enough/real/alive.

In the fogged mirror, you look. Truly look. A collection of cobbled together bits and limbs. Someone else’s lips and hair and clothes. All yourself and your work amputated. A zombie pantomime of by-gone ideals and remembrances.

You wipe away the fog again. There, smeared and broken among the watery trails, it is all too obvious why he cannot love you. You do not love yourself like this. A monstrous visage, the good parts ignored to decay, just a stitched-up collection of dead things.

He catches you crying sometimes. Swears to leave you for good and you beg him to stay. Every time. Holds you tight to his chest and whispers he’s sorry and promises to stop hurting you because he cares, he really cares, but you don’t think he knows exactly who is to blame.

He is late getting to his place one night so you start the record player. Sway, arms wrapped around yourself as Billie Holiday sings “You Go to My Head.”

On the refrain, Steve comes up behind you. Places his lips gently on your shoulder, runs his hands down your arms.

“Dance with me, Steve,” you say, facing away. Hold yourself a little tighter.

You hear his short gasp.

“God, please give me this, Steve. Please, just dance with me.” _You didn’t ask, but I gave up everything for you._

Wordlessly, he turns you and draws you to him. Sways until the notes fade away.

**

Your heart might not beat for a solid minute when the words “Time Travel” first come up.

It’s the end. Steve doesn’t realize what he’s going to do, but you do. Given half the chance, there’s no doubt.

“Hey, Doll.” He pulls you into his chest. “It’s going to be okay. This is what we do.”

You nod against him. No doubt they will be successful. Mutely, you pull out of his embrace. You cannot leave fast enough, this place where all these gods and angels stand.

Your last mistake is not going to your room.

While the solitary bird flits around where you sit in the courtyard, a concerned Steve overrides security to get into your quarters to comfort you.

When you get to your room, Steve is there. Looks so out of place, like a dog on its hind legs. His face is flat, eyes cold. Silently, he turns your digital photo frame toward you. Each photo stripping away another lie. A photo of you with your parents, another in your toe shoes, two at recitals, tongue out and drunk at an Ozzy concert. Not one looks like you now. Not one.

Jaw squared, he looks to the kitchen where printouts of old recipes litter the counter.

“Steve,” you say, starting to reach for him. He puts a hand up. “Steve, let me explain.”

“You know,” his voice is steel, “I didn’t go out with you because you reminded me of the past. I went out with you because you asked me.”

“Steve, I just wanted to…wanted to…”

“You wanted to what? Read about me in a textbook and try to be - what? - fake it? Ugh, God.” He rolls his eyes, body half-twists away.

“It’s not like that.” Except, it is.

“It’s not? Oh, well then please tell me. Enlighten me. Because from where I am right now, it sure fucking looks like you took things you thought were special to me and just, what? Wore it like a suit to manipulate me?”

Near numb, you shake your head.

“It worked...it worked so well and you let me feel guilty about it!”

The shame pushes your legs out from under you. “I just wanted to make you happy.”

“Me? You can try to tell yourself that. No, you did this for you.” Holds the picture frame in both hands, the colors reflect in his eyes as they change. Under his breath, he says, “I don’t even know you.”

Steve nails you with his gaze. “Do you even realize what you’ve stolen from me? What you guilted me into? What I saved and I can never get back?”

Billie Holiday echoes in your brain. The song, the dance. Like a miracle, you hate yourself more.

You are carved down, scoured out, brittle bones bleached in the sun.

He shakes off his anger slightly. “I knew you were holding back, but this?” He points to a stack of work you’d let languish. Detailed housing plans, nutrition guidelines, research and half-complete presentation charts. “I can’t understand why...why wouldn’t you include me in this? Were you scared of not being enough? Too much? Of being you?” He sighs out. “Everyone can have those thoughts, that’s understandable. But, you didn’t trust me with you.”

You desperately reach for him, hold his arms. “I do trust you. I do.”

He scoffs. “The problem is you let me care about someone who doesn’t even exist. Who never existed. You kept “you” secret from me while I opened up to you. You think I let anyone else ever know how fucked up I feel?”

He looks at you in a way you never wanted. With grief.

“Damn it - Goddamn it all. I let you in.” I expect him to punch the wall, but the air just leaves him. He deflates. Smaller than ever seemed possible. “I fucking _let you in._ ”

**

Everyone comes back. Except Nat. All you have left is her voicemail.

There’s no more times together. Nothing.

It’s always been beautiful, pulsing nothing.

Bleeding out every pore.

In a makeshift office miles from decimated HQ, you bury yourself in her projects and try to resurrect your own until it’s time for Tony’s memorial.

You’re not sure why you’re going. Apart from Tony hiring you, you don’t really know anyone else there except Steve. But, Tony gave you a chance and, while you’ve mucked it up spectacularly of late, you go to honor him as best you can.

You try to stay in the shadows, so you’re surprised Steve finds you nonetheless. Even more surprised he tries.

Looking out over the water, he asks, “Are you going to be okay? Did you find a place to stay?”

“Yes.” No and yes.

“I’m so very sorry Steve. I just wish, I just wish…”

“Don’t.” He blows out a sigh. Hands in his pockets. “If you didn’t trust me, I could work to make you. If you didn’t trust yourself, I’d help you learn to. But you didn’t trust either of us and there’s nothing I can do about that. And that’s a damned tragedy.” He turns and starts to walk past you.

“Steve! Steve wait!” You cringe, your voice echoes over the serene lake. He keeps walking.

“Steve.” You sniff. “Please.”

He takes a huge gulp of air and turns partially toward you, staying in profile. Shaking his head softly, jaw askew, he lifts his hands and lets them fall as if to say, “What do you want from me?”

“Can we just try again? Start over?”

_How did we meet? How did we meet back when I was real?_

“Steve, I’m...I’m so sorry. You’re right. I was more than guarded, I was trying so hard to be good for you. I took what I knew and what you showed me and tried so hard to mold myself into what I thought you’d want. I know that was so stupid now. But I know you. I know you! And I just want a chance for you to know me. I...I...I like metal bands and R&B. I’m a cat AND dog person. I used to tap dance. There’s photographic evidence! They let me back on the orphan program and we’re using it as a template for veterans. I have yelled in the face of the Secretary of State. More than once. My grandparents didn’t raise me but I spent summers with them.” You choke back more tears. “I am actually a bit of a pervert. That’s who I am. I screwed up. I just want a chance to show you ‘me.’”

You cough and through blurry vision it almost looks like he starts to reach for you. Then, his arm pulls back.

“But what I felt - what I feel for you is so real. I’m absolutely in love with you, Steve Rogers.” You wipe your sleeve across your wet face. “I know I screwed up and I hurt you and I have no excuses, but I am b-begging you to give me a chance. Just let me start over.”

He doesn’t move, still looking out over the lake.

“Steve, please, I just want to show you who this girl really is.”

“She sounds amazing,” he says, toneless. Walks past you toward the platform where a case full of gems and a magic hammer wait. “I wish I could’ve met her. I would’ve loved her.”

This is when you know. You’re the bad guy in your own story.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I don’t know what you want from me/So careless in my company/Oh, if all that you say is true/There’ll be no getting over you (Tearing Me Up – Bob Moses) - youngmoneymilla’s 5K Writing Challenge


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